I'm the Founder and Managing Partner of Ironfire Capital LLC, which runs a tech-focused hedge fund and angel fund. I did a Ph.D. in Management at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York, with a specialization in Strategic Management. You can follow me on Twitter @ericjackson, subscribe to me on Facebook, follow me on Sina Weibo, or Circle me on Google+. My email is: dr.eric.jackson@me.com

The Top Ten Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us

I had a feeling – like I suspect many others – that he only had a few more days with us on this Earth.

He’s irreplaceable. We’ll never see anyone else like him. Edison, Einstein, Henry Ford… he has left an indelible mark on our society in the last 35 years and for many more to come.

Yet, despite his greatness, he also taught us that he’s just a man. He got up every day, like you and me. He kissed his family goodbye and he threw his heart and soul into his work – his passion — just like we can.

1. The most enduring innovations marry art and science – Steve has always pointed out that the biggest difference between Apple and all the other computer (and post-PC) companies through history is that Apple always tried to marry art and science. Jobs pointed out the original team working on the Mac had backgrounds in anthropology, art, history, and poetry. That’s always been important in making Apple’s products stand out. It’s the difference between the iPad and every other tablet computer that came before it or since. It is the look and feel of a product. It is its soul. But it is such a difficult thing for computer scientists or engineers to see that importance, so any company must have a leader that sees that importance.

2. To create the future, you can’t do it through focus groups – There is a school of thought in management theory that — if you’re in the consumer-facing space building products and services — you’ve got to listen to your customer. Steve Jobs was one of the first businessmen to say that was a waste of time. The customers today don’t always know what they want, especially if it’s something they’ve never seen, heard, or touched before. When it became clear that Apple would come out with a tablet, many were skeptical. When people heard the name (iPad), it was a joke in the Twitter-sphere for a day. But when people held one, and used it, it became a ‘must have.’ They didn’t know how they’d previously lived without one. It became the fastest growing Apple product in its history. Jobs (and the Apple team) trusted himself more than others. Picasso and great artists have done that for centuries. Jobs was the first in business.

3. Never fear failure – Jobs was fired by the successor he picked. It was one of the most public embarrassments of the last 30 years in business. Yet, he didn’t become a venture capitalist never to be heard from again. He didn’t start a production company and do a lot of lunches. He picked himself up and got back to work following his passion. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he only had a few weeks to live. As Samuel Johnson said, there’s nothing like your impending death to focus the mind. From Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement speech:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

4. You can’t connect the dots forward – only backward – This is another gem from the 2005 Stanford speech. The idea behind the concept is that, as much as we try to plan our lives ahead in advance, there’s always something that’s completely unpredictable about life. What seems like bitter anguish and defeat in the moment — getting dumped by a girlfriend, not getting that job at McKinsey, “wasting” 4 years of your life on a start-up that didn’t pan out as you wanted — can turn out to sow the seeds of your unimaginable success years from now. You can’t be too attached to how you think your life is supposed to work out and instead trust that all the dots will be connected in the future. This is all part of the plan.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

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Eric Jackson really does not get it. The difference between Apple as a company and with the products it produces is that they are designed and engineered in their totality.

The first Mac is a case in point where it was designed to be a simple cube that could be picked up with one hand and to which one only had to attach a keyboard and a mouse and start working.

Compare that to all the other computers at the time that required users to open the box, insert memory chips, add video cards, figure out which DIN connector fit where, and then is presented with a a: and a blank screen. Apple under Wozniak and Jobs always designed from the point of view of how to make things as easy as possible for the end user and then worked backwards to create the device, and they touched every aspect of that device from the microcode in the chips to the shape of the mouse in the user’s hand.

Contrast that with Bill Gates who resold another company’s product through IBM, or Michael Dell who simply bought components and put them in a metal box and then put his name on the label and sold them as though he had actually created something.

Whether he realized it or not, Jobs was a design engineer who put great value in the work of other such engineers which is increasingly rare in Silicon Valley with so many engineering jobs either outsourced to Asia or filled by H1-B temporary laborers (really indentured servants under the current laws). It is the difference between Porsche and Chevrolet or between Honda and Harley Davidson.

I tried an iPad for the first time yesterday. I didn’t manage to do much except by accident. I did use a McIntosh at work a while back. I was a programmer and engineer. I still design products with Autodesk’s Inventor Professional Suite. I even designed a possible replacement for the iPod Hi-Fi which we considered “junk” as audiophile.

This iPad is not that easy to use. I’ll go for tablets some day @ $199.

He thought different and came up with products we desire He lived a life that inspires An abandoned child who had dreams Not just wanting to play and have ice creams A determined person with brain and heart Of which he followed and developed into an art

Treasured his family members like oasis in arid land For he knew grass could not be grown on dehydrated sand He lived his each single day like it was his last Dared to enter space with no man there in the past The space now attracts millions of Applenite Who consume billions of billion bytes

Obstacles emerged on life’s path he vowed to clear With his spiritual tool one of the world’s sharpest spear Pierced through complacency Perforated all things perfunctory Stayed hungry as the stomach of knowledge would never be full Stayed foolish as seeds of success could well be sowed without a calculated pull

New waves wash away the old Making room for the young and bold Will the young have the sharp spears of their own Barring complacency perfunctory evils to roam Will they have the righteous and inspired hearts Entering new space that shines with humanity and glory and will never be dark

The world is in no shortage of the young and smart Possessing courage and determination to go into new space’s core part Opportunities are for the insightful and bold They vanish into thin air for the lazy and slow Happiness is to tap and achieve full potential Without losing sight on loving one’s family and real friends on the go So much so There is no regret when you in turn become the old

thankyou for taking the time to write and share….. this piece….. that is also a gift that some of us lack… and you have allowed us to read, to imbibe and to think about how we can use this in times ahead…i hope you will continue to find, to write and to share…..to allow us to find wisdom in the simplest of statements…

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff” said Marc Antony at the funeral of Julius Caesar. In no one was the stuff manifested sterner than in Steve Jobs. He pushed the boundaries of ambition to the threshold of audacity. Not the audacity of hope that Barack Obama referred to but the audacity to make possible that which others did not have the courage to dream of. Truly the Michelangelo of the digital age, he saw the potential of it and made it omnipresent and even omnipotent. Thank you for remaining foolish and hungry, Steve. Thank you for being true to the destiny that God had ordained for you. We are a better world because of it. The man called Steve Jobs died. The legend will live on. For time immemorial

I was especially taken by the comment regarding focus groups. In Henry Ford’s biography a similar philosophy is expressed. “How can the customer tell you what he wants when he has no idea what is available? You are the expert. It’s up to you to know what is available and can be delivered to the customer ?” I doubt that anyone could have proved the point better than Steve Jobs.

Eric, Just came across “10 Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us”. It was so well written and insightful that I am going to post it on my office wall and share it w all my friends via Linkedin and email. Thanks.

11. When there’s a reality distortion field around you you’re a god and everyone else around you is stupid and never come up with anything worthwhile

“And then, he’s really funny about ideas. If you tell him a new idea, he’ll usually tell you that he thinks it’s stupid. But then, if he actually likes it, exactly one week later, he’ll come back to you and propose your idea to you, as if he thought of it.”

I thought Bud was surely exaggerating, until I observed Steve in action over the next few weeks. The reality distortion field was a confounding melange of a charismatic rhetorical style, an indomitable will, and an eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand. If one line of argument failed to persuade, he would deftly switch to another. Sometimes, he would throw you off balance by suddenly adopting your position as his own, without acknowledging that he ever thought differently. – Andy Herzfeld, “Reality Distortion Field”, February, 1981

Steve’s passing has given us a lot to contemplate. I am just a low end consultant-shmuck and guys like Steve do not tolerate me for long, but something else I would add to this list : don’t be afraid to lose your job. The drive for personal security stifles a lot of innovation and creates counter-productive work environments.

While Encorpera is rightly paying homage to Steve Jobs,the current state of HR-dominated corporate groupthink tends to drive out people with his level of risk taking and creativity. No government mandates can encourage those types to become entrepreneurial but the lesson Steve left behind is well worth reviewing.

I have written about some of my work search lessons on this blog, may be of help to folks grappling with conventional admonishments vs. the reality of finding a job :

These lessons were valid maybe 20 or 30 years ago, but the powers-that-be, including Jobs, have taken everything away, so in today’s economy there is nothing left for the average person. You can be persistent and optimistic all you want, but if there’s no foundation and no substance anywhere, all that effort goes to waste. “Expect a lot from others” and expect to be disappointed. Everyone has retreated into their own shells for self-preservation. Except for those who already have it, the American Dream is gone.

Our Hero is gone and we are paying our respect to him for everything what Steve Jobs has done for us. He will live in so many real and virtual “things” we “touch” every day in our life now, he has changed the world and made the very high bar to reach for any human. He has connected us to the WEB on the go. We can access, connect, store and use the Information on the move in Style thanks to him and Enjoy every moment of famous “Apple’s customer experience”. We need it so much for our Next Big thing – Electric Cars dreamz now…We will deeply miss him. We were always hoping that he will make his entrance into the Electric Cars space – he was always up to the magnitude of this task – to change the world one more time. He did not have a lot of time left to do it. Who will take his place now in our Lithium Dreamz? Elon Musk and his Tesla has a very good chance to make it. Or maybe it will be Google guys with their billions of cash and drive to change the world? Or maybe Apple with Steve Jobs’ legacy can still make it? Will it be Facebook or Twitter who will connect us again in physical space and make our freedom possible in the post carbon world? We need the Manhattan project for the Electric Cars in our broken society and we need it right now – who can lead the world into the future?

Electric Cars industry gives Trillion market place business opportunity to fill. And we will throw again as with Apple iCar – Why Not?

Thanks Eric for sharing this great piece. Indeed, Steve touched many lives. He was blessed with a lot of outstanding qualities. For me he was the Greatest Showman from Silicon Valley… The passion and belief in his Team and products was quite visible in all his product launches. You’ll be missed Steve.

Great article. Steve Job’s legacy is truly inspiring. I think these elementary messages are very important, in age where business and success in general is over analysed and confused by jargon. Once again, brilliant article. I will take much from this!

The most important lesson that Steve Jobs has taught us is to achieve something in this life that would serve as a lesson and inspiration for others.Jobs had his share of contribution in making the world a better place to live for millions of people through his smart techonological innovations.So, the greatest tribute to him will be carrying his legacy forward by contributing to the life of at least one other person in our own way…

Steve Jobs is a genius. He is combined technology, poet, art, passion, inspiration so Apple’s product is especially. Beside he is a greatest CEO all the world. Unfortunately, I don’t have any product of Apple. I never used iPhone, iPad… I only view perfect features via video clips on network. I think that it is really perfect products. He discovered amazing things.

I just finished reading Isaacson’s fascinating biography on the man behind the myth that is “Steve Jobs”. It’s infuriating that we live in a world where a talent like Isaacson is forced into writing heavily obfuscated (or else it would appear a smear job) biographies about someone that I’d normally feel a great deal of sympathy for; but then there are limits to my liberal sentiments.

You’re celebrating a man who, off the top of my head:

* Steals from and deceives the genius who is truly responsible for Apple, a gentle technical wizard clearly exploited by a ruthless and vindictive ‘friend’ – to the point where the father of Woz came out ready for violence to protect his son from Jobs. * Lies about anything and everything to the point where it’s no longer compulsion, but something incredibly darker and more disturbing. * Knocked up his girlfriend, whom he clearly abused and mistreated to the point where you’d have to be blind to claim he wasn’t culpable in part (or entirely) for her eventual mental disintegration. * He abandoned her with his child, and then attempted to paint her publicly as a ‘slut’; to avoid taking responsibility for his tiny, helpless daughter. * When he was no longer able to deny the obvious reality, forced to be the father he didn’t deserve a chance to be; he manipulated his daughter into leaving her mother and tearing their relationship to shreds. * He placed people in situations so untenable, it’s unfathomable that anyone would even put up with his abuse. In a sane world, but of course, the dark secret of human ‘nature’ is: Treat them mean, Keep them keen. * Whilst destroying his own company, Jobs brazenly destroyed other ‘competing’ departments in order to advance his personal ‘glory’. Many years later, the sheer irony of Tim Cook sneering at Sony for inter-departmental competition with his smug “We only have a single P/L figure at Apple” was a little too horrifying to be snickered at. * He was narcissistic to the point of nausea * I am willing to be corrected, but I finished the biography unable to pin down exactly what he created. Pixar’s success seemed to rely on the creative ability of talented and passionate geniuses. Apple I seemed to be the entirely the work of creative geniuses like Woz and the other technicians. The Apple II miracle reeked off statistical outlier good fortune initially; until Ivy and other creative geniuses produced lines of spectacular options and variations of endless brilliance which Jobs appeared to, um, select from? The argument that he had an eye for what would and wouldn’t work seems strikingly similar to the fallacy of gamblers who benefit by virtue of the illusion that is statistically implausible but entirely generic outlier results. Especially when you consider his ‘success’ at NeXT, which should – in business school – be an example of egocentric mania or a lesson in “how to fail, miserably”. White machines caressed with white gloves for dust? I had an NCO with a penchant for doing that at military academy. He was insane. But nothing like Jobs. * The bullying of the clearly delusional and ambitious applicant for the position of CEO, for ‘humorous’ purposes? Stupid to the point of being grounds for expulsion from a primary school, but from an acting CEO? * He brutally and maliciously cut out close friends who’d been with him the entire way (forcing Woz to take care of those whom Jobs had treated with cruelty), whilst remaining unrepentant and declining to explain his motivations for his pettiness. * If there was a single consistent theme to his entire career, it was the stream of creative talent forced to laugh at his contemptible habit of sneering at their ideas, abusing them for such ‘stupidity’; only to then present their ideas to everyone as his own.

I understand that we live in a world with vested interests in idolising success stories, but I kept reading and reading and all I could think was: “statistical outlier”.

People win lotteries all the time. Of course, there would be a lot of Steve Jobs who lost by being a maniacal tyrant.

I’m 16 years old, perhaps not mature enough to understand this world. But i dont know why this article drives me whenever i go through it! Steve jobs is the greatest CEO to ever take birth and you are one of the finest editors in this Website Sir!

Just this morning mulling over my job as a varsity lecturer and as a Chemistry grad who works in journalism and art, I cooked up my post. Stimulating minds of the future Of course my students will think I’ve lost it, so what better way to illustrate how to break from modular thinking than to show them your post.

Very good article, but I don’t agree with “7. Don’t care about being right”, if this is really from Jobs, he must know that any form of stealing is wrong, and it is not a something to be proud of. “If you have to steal others’ great ideas to make yours better, do it.”